CSB Bank on Monday reported over two-fold jump in net profit at Rs 68.9 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2020.

It had posted a net profit of Rs 24.6 crore in the second quarter of 2019-20.

The bank’s half-yearly profit after tax is at a record high of Rs 122.50 crore with Return on Assets or RoA (annualised) of 1.13 per cent despite having made a healthy provision of Rs 58.2 crore for COVID-19 during April-September, CSB Bank said in a regulatory filing.

Total income grew to Rs 567.55 crore during September quarter of 2020-21 as against Rs 431.07 crore in the year-ago period.

The bank registered a rise in gross non-performing assets (NPAs) to 3.04 per cent of gross advances at September-end 2020 from 2.86 per cent by the same period of 2019.

In terms of value, gross NPAs or bad loans stood at Rs 387.42 crore as against Rs 326.20 crore a year ago. Net NPAs, however, fell to 1.30 per cent (Rs 163.52 crore) from 1.96 per cent (Rs 221.51 crore).

Provisions for bad loans and contingencies for the quarter rose to Rs 80.72 crore from Rs 24.57 crore a year ago.

“In this centenary year, we are happy to announce a half-yearly profit of over Rs 100 crore. Now we are well entrenched on the growth track and have recorded a growth of over 10 per cent in both deposit and advances.

“We could post improvement in all key metrics: NIM, Cost Income Ratio, RoA, RoE, Gross NPA, Net NPA, PCR, CRAR. We have now set our own benchmarks to be exceeded next quarter,” said CVR Rajendran, Managing Director & CEO, CSB Bank.

While the asset growth so far has been contributed mostly by gold loan growth, the bank is committed to diversifying the asset base and product suite, he said.

“New retail banking team headed by Pralay (Mondal) is working on the products and processes for these segments and also on the strategies on customer acquisition on a larger scale. These will be in place this quarter end and we will focus on quantum and quality growth in the coming days,” Rajendran said.

CSB Bank stock settled at Rs 234.65 on BSE, up 1.73 per cent from previous close.